8/14/12

KILL BILL VOL. 1 - REVIEW

Ah Kill Bill, I remember seeing Quentin Tarantino's 4th film at the cinema and having THE best time. This was like watching a compilation of badass revenge movies from the 70's all put together into a fresh, new, exciting, unique package. I hadn't seen anything quite like it and it blew me away.

Uma Thurman gives a career-best performance as The Bride, a woman betrayed by her own buddies, namely the "Deadly Viper Assassination Squad" and its leader only known to us as "Bill", and left for dead. But a gunshot to the head just wasn't enough to keep her down and super-Uma is soon back and ready to kick ass. We follow her journey from when she wakes up from a long coma to her confrontation with Lucy Liu's O-Ren Ishii. It's typical revenge movie stuff and it all builds up to a thrilling final fight where the as-yet-unnamed Bride takes on The Crazy 88, easily one of the most useless gangs in movie history. By the end you're so into the Lucy Liu part of the plot you almost forget about Michael Madsen and the rest of Uma's targets, all kept nice and relatively quiet until Volume 2.

And as good as the second part of the story was, Volume 1 is where it's at.

Tarantino has one hell of a time here and it shows.

You've got a kitchen fight early on which boasts brilliant timing, an entirely animated, particularly bloody sequence, slashed limbs all over the place, a nutty schoolgirl swinging a big, giant, pointy ball, a Hattori Hanzo sword, an eye-patched Daryl Hannah and... a Pussy Wagon. Basically everything you could ever need. Kill Bill is a stylish, clever, very funny, very cool melting pot of all things good and revenge-ey (new word): cartoonish, mischievous, completely entertaining, inspired, this is one beat-'em-up you'll want to check out for sure.

It helps if you've seen a crazy amount of samurai/kung fu movies and westerns but regardless, you'd have to be pretty moody to spit on this one. Kill Bill goes for pure, mindless popcorn entertainment with a touch of class and a sprinkle of gore and it does just that, very well indeed.